Nowadays increasingly complex systems with digital components are being developed and used in many fields of technology. This relates inter alia to the field of aviation, computer technology, vehicle technology and communications technology.
The increasing complexity of these systems is based partly on the growing number of components used, but is partly caused also by the increasing complexity of the individual components themselves, for example due to the steady increase in circuit density on semiconductor elements.
Before such systems are ready for use, they must be tested for the correct functionality. A high level of complexity of such systems to be tested makes testing complicated and laborious, however. In particular, if a plurality of components are connected to one another, reliable testing is extraordinarily complex and timer consuming. If a system is still under development and is subject to regular adjustments and changes, constantly changing requirements result for the test method. It is then not normally possible to perform automatic testing of a system under development. In general, manual test operation is necessary instead, and a test engineer must intervene at many points directly in the test development, configuration and execution.
In the prior art, the normal procedure is such that a system, for example an integrated circuit, is reproduced by simulation. The integrated circuit is activated by signals and its response behaviour is registered and compared with the behaviour of the simulation, in order to detect any faults in the circuit. To be able to execute such a method, it is necessary for the data for the simulation to describe the ideal state of the device to be tested fully and correctly. A fault in the simulation makes a correct test procedure impossible and can even lead to dangerously incorrect test results.
Methods of this kind are dealt with in the specifications US 2002/0073375 A1 and US 2004/0225459, for example.
Mostly already fully developed components are tested for correct functioning as part of the quality control process during manufacture using such methods of the prior art. These methods are not designed, however, for testing whether an overall system under development, for example, can be operated within certain preset system parameters, thus can meet certain system requirements, when using a certain device to be tested. To do this, elaborate tests of larger system parts or even the overall system are required.
A further problem associated with this in the prior art consists in the device to be tested not being tested in the environment in which it is used. The signals for testing transmitted to the device to be tested are independent of the future system environment. The system environment itself is not reproduced, so that a very incomplete environment for the device to be tested results and a dynamic environment such as can arise during use is not incorporated into the test. Changes in the system environment also lead to the signals to be transmitted to the device to be tested having to be adapted manually.
A requirement exists accordingly for a method and a system for testing components of a system, which method and system can be adapted easily to changes in the device to be tested and/or its system environment and which also solve the other problems addressed. To this end it is first necessary to configure a test arrangement prior to the actual testing.